1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to automatic coffee vending machines, and in particular, to such machines for vending regular coffee which serves coffee brewed or extracted by pouring hot water to ground coffee powder in response to a vending request by a purchaser.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A vending machine has been well known and used in the prior art wherein instant coffee, tea and/or cocoa powders are stored in respective canister and are selectively supplied by a predetermined amount into a cup together with hot wwater in response to a purchaser's request to serve a desired coffee, tea or cocoa.
An automatic vending machine for regular coffee has also been known wherein ground coffee powder is stored in a canister and is supplied by a predetermined amount to a coffee extractor together with hot water in response to a vending request to serve a regular coffee.
In a certain type of such a regular coffee vending machine, coffee beans are stored in a canister and a predetermined amount of coffee beans is ground by a coffee mill at a vending operation.
In various known coffee vending machines, only one powder can be selected from different kinds of powders or beans contained in canisters at one vending request.
However, if various varieties straight coffees and various blended coffees are selectively available from a vending machine, the vending machine would be quite convenient for purchasers.